Rating: 3/5, average
Trigger Warning: pedophilia, transphobia, sexual assault
I must have been in a rebellious mood or something when I bought this. I’d been following Reason magazine online for a little while because my dad was a libertarian and I thought I’d come to understand his politics more by reading it. He never mentioned Camille Paglia to me and I don’t think he knew of her, but I saw her advertised in Reason and since she is a humanities scholar (actually, her book of poetry analysis, Break, Blow, Burn, was assigned reading in my senior year poetry seminar) I thought I’d check out this collection of Paglia’s essays on feminism.
Camille Paglia is known as an anti-feminist feminist because she considers herself a feminist, but she criticizes other feminists and feminist ideas that she perceives as prudish, anti-male, or unrealistic. Her book Sexual Personae (published in 1990) is a 700-page tome about sex and gender in the arts from ancient times to modern day.
Before we go any further, I’d just like to point out that Camille Paglia approves of pedophilia. This is one of her controversial stances that she doesn’t tout as loudly as her other views, but I wish I’d known about it before I read this book because I probably wouldn’t have picked it up.
Here’s a quote that I found in the Pagan Beauty chapter of Sexual Personae:
“These days, especially in America, boy-love is not only scandalous and criminal but somehow in bad taste. On the evening news, one sees handcuffed teachers, priests, or Boy Scout leaders hustled into police vans. Therapists call them maladjusted, emotionally immature. But beauty has its own laws, inconsistent with Christian morality. As a woman, I feel free to protest that men today are pilloried for something that was rational and honorable in Greece at the height of civilization.”
Uh… yikes. Camille Paglia’s no stranger to controversy, but I think this is her worst opinion.
More from Wikipedia:
“In 1993, Paglia signed a manifesto supporting NAMBLA, a pederasty and pedophilia advocacy organization. In 1994, Paglia supported lowering the legal age of consent to fourteen. She noted in a 1995 interview with pro-pedophile activist Bill Andriette “I fail to see what is wrong with erotic fondling with any age.” In a 1997 Salon column, Paglia expressed the view that male pedophilia correlates with the heights of a civilization, stating “I have repeatedly protested the lynch-mob hysteria that dogs the issue of man-boy love. In Sexual Personae, I argued that male pedophilia is intricately intertwined with the cardinal moments of Western civilization.” Paglia noted in several interviews, as well as Sexual Personae, that she supports the legalization of certain forms of child pornography.”
She connects the rise and fall of civilizations to sexuality, but I’m not sure what her reasoning on that is. I had a hard time finding logical support for her assertions in her writing. I don’t know much about ancient Greece and Rome, but the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. However, even if she could prove that pedophilia tends to run rampant at the apex of civilization and social tolerance of homosexuality and transsexuality abound in periods of decline (as she claims in an interview with Spiked, that wouldn’t prove that the sexual norms of those civilizations are what caused that decline. Rome did fall to barbarian invaders, but it’s not clear that the cause of that was increased tolerance of different sexualities and gender identities. A search of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire Wikipedia page for “gay” or “homo” turns up zero results. Without sound reasoning, her claims are nothing but dangerous to gay and trans people and to children.
Camille Paglia is a lesbian and said “I describe myself as transgender” in an interview with the Washington Examiner because she dressed in masculine Halloween costumes as a child.
In the introduction to Free Women, Free Men, she writes:
“But never in my passionate identification with heroic male figures was I encouraged by concerned but misguided adults to believe that I actually was a boy and that medical interventions could bring that hidden truth to life. On the contrary, by being forced to learn coping strategies for surviving in society, I was freed to develop my talents in other ways that have proved invaluable over time. When recently asked how I “identify” or describe myself, I replied, “Non-gendered entity.” However, except in very rare conditions of true hermaphroditism (a congenital disorder), the DNA of every cell of the human body is inflexibly coded as male or female from birth to death. While respect and legal protection are owed to anyone who for whatever reason seeks to shift positions along the intricate spectrum of sexual personae (the Latin word for theater masks), changing sex is scientifically impossible.”
Paglia seems to think that not transitioning is more difficult than transitioning for a trans person. While many trans people choose to transition, I don’t know that I would say that one path (transition or not transitioning) is more difficult than the other. They both certainly have their challenges: people who transition have to deal with physical and mental changes and getting society to recognize them as their gender, while people who don’t transition have to do a lot of inner work to accept their body and the way others perceive their gender as it is. The idea that struggle is better because builds character is also suspect. Sometimes pain just hurts and ending the pain frees up more energy for growth. It would be really silly to say someone who needs eyeglasses should go without so that their eyes learn how to see; some things don’t fix themselves.
She says “changing sex is scientifically impossible”, but is that really true? Aren’t hormones part of sex, and doesn’t taking them change your sex, at least in part if not down to the DNA? She used to excoriate feminists for denying the impact of hormones on thinking and behavior. For trans people, hormones do produce a change in secondary sex characteristics, like an increase in body hair for trans men and breast growth in trans women. Most trans people feel a mental shift when going on hormones, as well. You may not be able to change sex down to the DNA level, but many trans people can get to the point where they can be recognized as their gender in society as well as feel more aligned with their gender internally.
She seems to be disparaging the concept of gender identity being separate from sexual identity, but if she doesn’t believe in “hidden truth[s]”, then how can she call herself a “non-gendered entity”? If she believes in sex but not in gender, then how does she account for people who have a binary gender identity (as opposed to herself, as someone who doesn’t)? I think she does perceive a difference between herself as a nonbinary person and cis women.
In fact, the introduction contains numerous eyerolling examples of Paglia smugly saying she’s not like other women. She didn’t like Doris Day, she liked dressing up as male historical figures, etc. This attitude of “I’m not like other girls” is so common it’s become a meme and it’s definitely out of fashion in modern feminism, which exhorts women to lift up other women instead of putting them down for making feminine choices in dress, tastes, or lifestyle.
Furthering this bad impression is that her “I’m not like other girls” mentality is mixed in with passages of her dissing other feminists including Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Naomi Wolf, Gloria Steinem, and Kate Millett. Paglia makes it out as though her brand of sex/porn/male-positive feminism won over their sex/porn/male-hating variety. I have to admit it’s interesting to read a history of feminism from before I started paying attention to politics (and before I was born, in many cases). There are a few feminists that Paglia respects. These include Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, and Germaine Greer.
After the introduction, Paglia includes two chapters from Sexual Personae. In them she identifies the female sex and gender with the chthonic, the underworld or earth-cult in ancient Pagan religion. She identifies the male with the sky-cult of the Greco-Roman pantheon. She portrays sex as a dark, pagan, taboo physical necessity that is at odds with civilization and reason. When the book came out it got criticized for reinforcing sexual stereotypes, but her point is that the stereotypes are based in truth. The problem is, she’s trying to use art to prove that the stereotypes are true, which is a flawed premise because art is not always truthful, no matter how beautiful. If she was using statistics and science it would be a lot more persuasive.
I have a theory that much of her worldview springs from her experience of gender dysphoria. Take a look at this passage from Sexual Personae:
“Incarnation, the limitation of mind by matter, is an outrage to imagination. Equally outrageous is gender, which we have not chosen but which nature has imposed upon us. Our physicality is torment, our body the tree of nature on which Blake sees us crucified.”
Do cis people feel “crucified” on their gender? Paglia said she was transgender in that Washington Examiner interview and that she was a “non-gendered entity” in the introduction. In J.K. Rowling’s essay about transgender issues she wrote: “I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition”. It’s okay to be transgender but not want to transition. A transgender person can do the cost/benefit analysis and choose not to come out, or to come out but not transition, or to transition socially but not medically. However, it’s wrong to try to take the option to transition away from others, as TERFs like Paglia and Rowling are attempting to do by promoting the argument that because they themselves can live without transitioning, others can as well.
There’s this idea among TERFs that trans people could just get used to their birth gender as time goes on. This might be true for some, but for others, it may never happen. Many people who transitioned older had a period of trying really hard to fit into their birth genders, but it just wasn’t authentic to them. Toni Newman, for instance, had a period of being a bodybuilder, and Mia Violet had a period of trying to fit the role of gamer guy. It’s fine for Camille Paglia to say that she was able to get comfortable in her birth gender, but when she says other trans people should, that’s where she’s wrong because her experience isn’t universal.
When she puts herself on a pedestal as a model of the “good transgender”, she’s handing over a rhetorical weapon to transphobes. This comment Sheridan Merrick received on her petition to have Paglia removed from UofA is one example: “Camille Paglia is a transgender person who was able to accept and overcome her mental disease. Be like Camille.”
What kind of trans person throws other trans people under the bus? I always wonder what makes minority right-wing provocateurs like her, Milo, Blaire, and Candace do it… is it money? Fame? Self-hatred? Rejection from the minority community? Camille Paglia famously doesn’t get along with other lesbians or other women.
Later in the excerpt from Sexual Personae, she asserts that nature is savage and man creates art as a bulwark against it. She attacks her feminist contemporaries for having a naïve, Rousseauian view of nature (Jordan Peterson also blamed Rousseau for liberalism). She writes, “Society is not the criminal but the force which keeps crime in check… The rapist is created not by bad social influences but by a failure of social conditioning.”
She then cites Freud’s theory of “family romance”, saying that our relationships to parents and family determine how we relate to others as we go through life. She says, “The element of free will in sex and emotion is slight… A perfectly humane eroticism may be impossible… In Western culture, there can never be a purely physical or anxiety-free sexual encounter.” [emphasis mine] I don’t know if she’s still talking about rape or just speaking theoretically, but she is saying that sex can never be ethical, which is debatable. Personally I think sex between two consenting adults is ethically fine. I disagree with what she says here because I think it downplays the wrongness of rape by relativizing it (rape is wrong, but all sex is wrong). Ayn Rand said something similar… I wonder how they thought about their own sex lives? Did they think what they were doing in the bedroom was wrong, and why? Is it because of shame about pleasurable sex coming from a conservative or religious background?
Camille Paglia writes that her most controversial essay was her New York Newsday op-ed on date rape, “Rape and Modern Sex War”, which was published back in 1991 and led to feminist groups calling for her firing from the university where she was teaching. The essay targets a list of popular feminist ideas:
- Sex without explicit verbal consent is rape.
- Women can “do anything, go anywhere, say anything, wear anything” and men should still respect their bodily autonomy.
- Sexual differences are socially constructed.
- Rape is a crime of violence but not of sex.
- Rape comes from society in the form of rape culture.
- Men have power over women, women don’t have power over men.
- Women are helpless to defend themselves.
- Rape can be handled by college disciplinary procedures.
Paglia seems to think women are being told by feminists that they were raped when they just had awkward sex… I don’t know if this is true. It seems to me that young women are coming forward of their own volition to talk about their experiences, but I suppose the discourse about consent could be pushing young women to misinterpret bad sex as rape? Maybe she has a point here, but at least for new relationships, I think it’s best to err on the safe side and get verbal consent. Not all men can understand nonverbal consent, and not all women know how to be clear about what they want. Asking for consent just takes a second and it’s the bare minimum men can do to protect themselves from rape accusations.
Paglia contends that consent is often nonverbal and she includes dress, behavior, and carelessness as part of implied consent. This is victim-blaming because it puts the fault only on women. On the other hand, I can see what she means that women are being a bit hypocritical if they deny the messages they’re sending with their clothing. Even if women dress up sexy, though, they’re not waiving their right to bodily autonomy. Dressing sexy may be intended as a nonverbal invitation to look or flirt, but it’s not an open invitation to everything or from anyone.
She does say that men should be held accountable by society, but nowhere does she say that men have an internal moral responsibility to not rape. She invokes Freudian concepts like “Men must struggle for identity against the overwhelming power of their mothers… They have just left their mothers and are questing for their male identity.” She talks as if young men’s libidos are a natural force that must be constrained by society. However, who is better to control a man than the man himself? Why does she leave men’s self-control out of the discussion?
Does rape come from society or nature… I think it could be both. Paglia thinks feminists are saying it’s strictly culture, but I don’t know if feminists actually say that. It could be a natural urge that is reinforced by culture. Some portrayals of women in media can be dehumanizing and encourage men to see women as a product to be consumed rather than a being possessing their own consciousness.
I don’t know if I’m on board with her with all the Freudian junk. I’m not sure what she means about women wielding sexual power over men or men being afraid of being consumed by women. It’s interesting, but a little far-fetched. Men have the same power to reject women, and some women fear committing to a man.
I halfway agree with her assertion that women are responsible for defending themselves. If you can defend yourself, that’s great, and you should do it, but no matter how careful you are, sometimes life is simply out of your control. Sometimes shit just happens. I think it’s harmful to default to blaming the woman or saying she should take the responsibility for not being careful enough when the man was the one committing a crime.
Camille Paglia argues that colleges should not be handling rape because “the theatrics of public rage over date rape are their way of restoring the old sexual rules that were shattered by my generation.” I don’t think anybody’s suggesting curfews or chaperones, though? I guess she’s afraid colleges will start to move in that direction to cover themselves legally. I suppose I could see that… but I don’t like the alternative of ignoring the problem either.
I think she sees campus rape proceedings as having more consequences for the perpetrator than they actually do. Rape is extremely hard to prosecute whether it’s in the legal system or in academia. The heaviest penalty that colleges can impose is expulsion, and colleges are hesitant to do that. You can imagine expelling a student is a paperwork nightmare and a loss of that student’s tuition for the college, so I’d imagine colleges have strong incentive not to expel. Paglia (and other conservatives) exhort victims to contact the police instead of going through the college, but there are drawbacks to that. A vanishingly low percentage of rapes that are reported ever see a day in court, and court records are public, which leaves victims open to retaliation. In addition, some survivors don’t want to see their rapist go to jail, they just want them to be held accountable, and I think on-campus meetings can reach that bar.
Paglia doesn’t have a good argument for why these meetings are so bad. In fact, she doesn’t even describe them at all. You would think she might have sat in on one as faculty, but I guess not. She says that young women should handle their own problems instead of expecting the administration to take care of them, but it’s dangerous for a woman to go confront her rapist on her own. She says women should be careful not to put themselves in sketchy situations and tell sexual harassers off, but that doesn’t help women who have already been raped. Should rapists just be left alone and allowed to continue without facing any consequences?
She writes: “Running to Mommy and Daddy on the campus grievance committee is unworthy of strong women. Posting lists of guilty men in the toilet is cowardly, infantile stuff.” She says feminism is infantilizing to women, but look at this language. She’s straight-up making fun of rape victims. Women who choose to come out about sexual assault in order to get justice are brave, not cowardly. Sharing a vulnerable, traumatic moment with strangers is terrifying. Women who choose to go through that are not “shrinking violets”, they’re showing impressive emotional control. Writing a warning on the bathroom wall is a small thing one can do to help keep others safe. Women already warn each other about which guys are creepy, writing it on the bathroom wall is just the same thing in written form.
There is a risk of false rape accusations, but they comprise only about 2-10% of cases. Even for those cases, wouldn’t meetings that are confidential and mostly consequence-free be better for the falsely accused than going through the legal system and having the accusation be public? I think the goal for many of these commentators who say college rape proceedings are bad is for women to shut up and do nothing. “Go the the police” isn’t really an alternative that they want victims of sexual assault to actually use, it’s a diversion tactic to get them to stop calling out their abusers.
(Note: I connect women with victims and men with rapists because I had to in order to address her ideas, but women can be rapists and men can be victims as well. Framing it as male rapists and female victims as she does is alienating to male victims and ignores the danger posed by female perpetrators.)
I could go on analyzing this chapter-by-chapter, but there are thirty-three more essays in here chock full of harebrained opinions. Camille Paglia stands at such a strange middle ground between right and left as a lesbian that for some reason is very concerned for men. I believe her way of transitioning gender is to align herself as closely as possible to the interests and opinions of men. Her writing is big on grand pronouncements and knee-jerk “common sense” but scanty on concrete evidence. In the whole of Sexual Personae, she only cites one or two psychology papers and no biology (despite her insistence in the same book that gender studies abandon theory and embrace science…). She submits poetry and art as proof of eternal truths about the sexes, which is dubious.
Her calls for the humanities to abandon Foucault and return to Freud are interesting… I haven’t read either of those authors, but I’ll have to keep that in mind if I do start reading more theory. Her essay “Scholars in Bondage” describes how over-reliance on Foucault is hampering academic writing. It’s interesting, but it seems like any theory that acquires clout will become the hegemonic narrative applied to everything (like in Christian theology the Bible is the lens theologians see the world through). We need to be wary of one way of thinking becoming so central it edges all others out. I think that’s why writers like Camille Paglia have an appeal—because they think differently. Maybe that’s what she’s really going for under all the other stuff. Her goal may not be to be right, but to challenge intellectual hegemony.
Even though I disagree with her on 75% of what she says, she does make me question things. I worry though that her writings are being used as a weapon against progressivism by people who are using them to affirm their own sexist, homophobic, or transphobic biases. Provocateurs like her treat important issues that effect people’s lives as fun intellectual games, and that can be really harmful to the people those issues effect.
I debated whether or not I should post this review, but I decided to post it because very few people seem to know about her stance on pedophilia. I didn’t even know until after I finished the book and started researching her, so I assume most people who have only seen clips of her online or read a couple of articles don’t know either. I think it’s also easy for people to swallow her pronouncements on sex uncritically, and it’s important to be aware that they’re based in mythology and Freudianism, which is a pretty shaky foundation.
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